Mads Holmen

Co-Founder and CEO

Mads used to promote some of the world’s largest brands as part of goviral, where he worked closely with the founding team throughout the company’s rapid growth and sale to AOL for 96.7m USD in 2011.

After the acquisition, Mads continued as planning director where he contributed to multiple Cannes Lions winning video campaigns, was commended for best digital sales team in the 2012 Campaign Media Awards and carried out extensive public speaking and written work on online media and marketing. When not consumed by Bibblio, Mads rock climbs, reads and collects rare trading cards.

Rich Simmonds

Co-Founder and Chief Experience Officer

Rich has 20 years experience in interface and graphic design. He holds a BSc in interactive media and has worked internationally as the principal UX designer and creative lead for businesses across communications and media. Most recently he was the senior strategic designer for AOL's video products across Europe and Asia, where he met co-founder Mads.

Rich is responsible for the Bibblio brand, its design principles and the UX across our platforms and modules. When he's off-duty (if a designer ever can be), Rich gets geeky over cartography, cuisine and history.

Mike Clarke

Head of Development

Mike's decade of development experience sets himself and his team in good stead to support the build of the Bibblio platform. His career as a software engineer has taken him from his home of Cape Town to London, where he worked alongside Mads in the transition of goviral to become an AOL brand. He was later joined in the video product team by Rich. He now coordinates Bibblio's technical expansion.

Mike is in his element when using the latest technology to create simple, elegant solutions to big problems. When not exploring this passion he enjoys the great outdoors of South Africa's Western Cape.

Nic Young

Head of Product

Nic has worked as a software and product developer at startups, agencies and consultancies for nearly a decade. Recently he was part of 22seven, which sold to Old Mutual in 2013. While he likes getting his hands dirty with the technical aspects of creating software, he particularly enjoys a broader problem space with more abstract challenges, and is most comfortable focusing on what software means to people.

Nic has a strong interest in language and literature, and has published short fiction and essays in the UK and USA. He tends a cabin in a forest outside Cape Town when he can, and spends much of the rest of his time in London.

Dr Mahbub Gani

Lead Data Scientist

Mahbub is energised by making algorithms and data science make a meaningful difference to the life projects of individuals and communities. He has delivered on this aspiration through an eclectic career consisting, in the main, of over a decade of teaching and research at King’s College London. This period as a lecturer in Engineering Mathematics is bookended by experience in embedded systems development and, more recently, analytics and data science within the financial services and learning sectors.

Mahbub interleaves his professional interests with his passionate engagement of philosophy (especially the continental variety), post-colonial political theory and abstract mathematics. Such cerebral nourishment is supplemented by food for the body (Mahbub has been a keen practitioner of Kung-fu for the last twenty years) and for the soul (Mahbub is an avid follower of symphonic metal.)

Fiona Hayes

Head of Operations

Prior to Bibblio, Fiona was Operations Manager for Vita Coco EMEA, joining in 2012 as its tenth member. She managed the expansion of the end-to-end supply chain with a regional growth of £36 million revenue over three years. Before that, Fiona was at Accenture technology consultancy, project managing a team of 40 through the build phase of a large-scale government IT project.

Fiona has a keen interest in political current affairs and a continuing fascination (borderline obsession) with the advancement of aviation. When Fiona is not streamlining a process she is digital detoxing on a sheep farm in Ireland.

Harry Lancaster

Head of Marketing

Harry started his career as a solicitor with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP, before joining JAG Shaw Baker Limited, a leading boutique legal practice focussed on the technology and venture capital sectors. The deals he was involved in included fundraises in the edTech sector for BridgeU Limited and Emerge Ventures Limited. Harry's interest in edtech led him to jump the fence from law to business, and he moved over to join the team in February 2016.

When he's not marketeering Harry can often be found cooking, trying to knock the rust of his guitar strings or working his way up a climbing wall.

Matthew Busick

Head of Implementation

Matthew has been working at the intersection of learning and technology throughout his career. He most recently managed university partnerships for the student competitions platform Sqore in Stockholm, collaborating with career centres to launch employment challenges for their key corporate partners. Before moving to Sweden, he was stationed in London as the head of Knewton's adaptive learning enterprise team, coordinating implementations with educational publishers throughout Europe.

Robbert van der Pluijm

Head of Bibblio Labs

Robbert started out as a teacher in a vocational school. Keen to harness the power of technology in the classroom, he became an educational consultant for institutions in secondary and tertiary education. He holds a master's degree in Education for Professional Learning and Development and wrote his thesis on gamified learning experiences.

Dutchman Robbert leads special projects within Bibblio Labs, our R&D arm. He is responsible for the dissemination of everything to do with algorithmic development. He organises the following London Meetup Groups: Future of Media & Publishing, Recommender Systems and Adversity Manifesto.

When he's not connecting people or sharing thoughts on creating a better web, he's regularly breaking a sweat in the gym or can be found binge-watching Netflix.

Chris Clarke

Software Developer

Chris holds several certifications for 3D modeling and animation. Being technically minded however, and exposed to the web development and programming world over the past eight years, Chris has found his home in the land of code and honey.

When he’s not busy coding, Chris’ main interest is competitive computer gaming, playing for one of the top multi-gaming organisations in South Africa. He has held several top spots over the years, both nationally and in his hometown of Cape Town.

Heinrich van den Ende

Software Developer

Heinrich holds a Bachelor of Technology in software development from his native Cape Town. During his studies, he completed several internships as a software developer, writing mainly in Java. At Bibblio, he focuses on API development, but also advises on architectural decisions and maintains features and issue resolution on Bibblio Open.

He rates music and programming as his top interests - Heinrich has been playing guitar for more than half of his life. He finds good software design to be a fascinating topic, even outside of work. Like Mike, Heinrich also enjoys the great outdoors.

Ross Simpson

Software Developer

Ross and Mike have worked together previously, and are now enjoying a long overdue reunion at Bibblio. During the interlude, Ross worked at Konga.com on their GraphQL API Gateway and NodeJS MicroServices, powering their new Progressive Web App, that was shown at Google I/O 2016. He strongly believes in using the right tool for the job and is passionate about automation, optimisation and efficiency. Ross also speaks at information security conferences.

When not working, he enjoys gaming - especially making in-game gold at the auction house in World of Warcraft. He lives in Cape Town and is married with seven rescue animals, often fostering several more rescue cats at a time! Ross also helps run a monthly information security meetup and annual conference.

Our expert advisors

Volker Hirsch

Chairman

Volker is a corporate lawyer turned serial entrepreneur, who recently sold Scoreloop - a similar platform business in mobile gaming. He also invests and advises in the Emerge Education incubator.

Having been involved in pioneering deals and concepts, Volker is a sought-after keynote speaker, talking at TEDx, SXSW and many others. He's a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and is based in Cheshire, England.

Walter Badillo

Advisor

Walter is CTO of The Business of Fashion, a series A platform for all things sartorial. Prior to this, he was technical director of goviral, which sold to AOL, where he became CTO. By connection, Walter has worked closely with Mads, Rich and Mike, understanding their capabilities and having a strong rapport.

When not investing or advising, he oil paints, travels widely and likes to sample London's gastronomic scene.

Richard Nash

Advisor

Richard is an acclaimed publisher, digital strategist and thought leader, working with recent community startups including Small Demons, Byliner and Sirens.

He edited Lydia Millet's Pulitzer Prize finalist Love in Infant Monkeys. The Utne Reader named him one of Fifty Visionaries Changing Your World and the Bookseller picked him as one of the Five Most Inspiring People in Publishing. He lives in New York.

Spiros Rally

Advisor

Spiros is a senior executive with a proven track record for successfully delivering new products and services to market. He lives in New York, overseeing Sony's global DigitalWorks group.

He is a co-founder of Flatzapp, a real estate start-up and is a mentor at Seedcamp. Spiros holds a BSc in Industrial Engineering and an MBA in Finance from the New York Institute of Technology.

Working at Bibblio

We're hiring

We are always looking for the smartest minds in machine learning, systems design and development to join us on our journey to revolutionise the enrichment and discovery of quality content. See our latest vacancies.

Student power

There are plenty of opportunities for students to join Bibblio's movement. From short term positions to industrial placements, young talent has an exciting opportunity to be a part of a truly radical step-change.